China has announced it will build a state run search engine to compete with, no wait, dominate and overrun, its own semi-autonomous upstarts Baidu (CEO Robin Li is coming to Web 2 this year) and Yahoo-backed Alibaba (CEO Jack Ma came in years past).
All I can say is “Good luck with that, China.”
If search engine share is seen as equivalent to vote counts at a rigged election, I have no doubt that the Chinese state engine will have a commanding share within a year. But in the hearts and minds of sophisticated Chinese users, there will be no doubt as to what the state run service is really all about. Control.
Reminds me of a highly touted, and now forgotten, European effort to start a continental search engine called Quaero. You don’t remember it? You are not alone. Fortunately, you hang out with search geeks like me. Here’s my final piece on that albatross.
It can’t be a lot of fun to run Baidu right about now. Makes me wonder if Google knew this was coming when it chose to step out of China. If it didn’t, man, does it look smart now.